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Kieran Hurley – A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and the Fact it Rains

Kieran Hurley didn’t know what to expect when he hitched
up in a tiny car and embarked on a road trip around rural Perthshire to talk to
the local farming community about creating a new play. With Perth Theatre
artistic director Lu Kemp also on board, writer and performer Hurley’s
intention was to weave together assorted voices representing those living on
the frontline of communities often marginalised from political discourse. It is
they, however, who will be forced to square up to the consequences of recent
decisions, with their already parlous livelihoods potentially at stake in
whatever new landscape emerges out of an increasingly fractious post Brexit
referendum climate.

Initiated by Kemp, the result is A Six Inch Layer of
Topsoil and the Fact it Rains, an evocatively titled piece of verbatim theatre
performed as a ceilidh play by actor/musicians Aly Macrae and Melody Grove.
Rather than presenting the show in Perth Theatre itself, Kemp has opted to tour
it around a network of village and community halls that go beyond the city and
out to the less well-travelled places where material for the play originates
from.

“The concept started with Lu,” Hurley stresses, “with
the idea being to make a new piece of work about and for people in rural
Perthshire, and to take something out of Perth as an acknowledgement and recognition
of audiences that exist beyond Perth itself. In terms of making a piece of
verbatim theatre, we wanted to set up a platform where we were able to respond
to current issues in an immediate way. In Perthshire, there are issues about
agriculture and food production, and how farming has changed or is likely to
change.”

With a background in writing and performing solo works
such as Beats and Heads Up, plus similarly styled ceilidh plays such as Rantin,
Hurley is more than well versed in creating theatre that is more intimate than
a traditional play. Where Rantin and others had a polemical aspect to it, A Six
Inch Layer of Topsoil and the Fact it Rains provides a voice for the people
whatever their views might be.

“It’s quite a funny one,” says Hurley. “Verbatim
theatre is often used as a platform for marginalised voices, and that’s true here
as well, except we’re talking to farmers and land-owners as well as activists
and land reformers. That’s made for a much wider set of conversations about how
these communities are affected by various things, especially in light of
Brexit.

“What was great was getting this entire range of
voices. There were quite a few people who were pro-Brexit, and there were others
who voted to remain in Europe, but who were still optimistic about everything
that’s happening. We also spoke to young people who were trying to do things in
a really interesting way in terms of bio-diversity, and who were running farms
as co-operatives.

“We also learnt about how much land use is connected
to land ownership, and how that has a relationship to how land is used in terms
of food production. But our audiences will already be more well versed in these
things than we will. Part of the process was me and Lu driving round these
rural parts of Perthshire on roads that weren’t really built for cars. We were
a right pair of townies.”

In this respect, Hurley and Kemp’s researches
inevitably threw up a few surprises.

“All of our conversations were done anonymously, so
no-one is identified in the script,” says Hurley. “But as well as speaking to
farmers, we spoke to activists, experts and politicians. One thing that was
perhaps surprising was how some people who you might expect to be dismayed
about the direction things are going in terms of what Brexit will mean for
sub-cities and land ownership were more optimistic than you might expect. We
also spoke to several migrant workers, and again, you might expect these people
to think that Brexit will be a disaster, but that wasn’t the case. Then you’d
speak to people who you’d expect to be traditional Tory farmers, but who had
quite radical ideas. In that way it was an interesting exercise in having your
pre-conceptions shattered.”

As well as some of the conversations the project threw
up, the process of creating A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and the Fact it Rains
from scratch in the way it was done was itself something of an eye-opener for
Hurley.

“It’s funny doing a verbatim thing,” he says. “You
have to try and sniff things out like a detective. You can’t put an ad in the
paper. You have to follow a few leads, send emails out and gradually build up
some kind of trust with people, so you eventually build up this informal
network of good will. That makes for a really long collaborative process of
research before you’ve even started doing interviews with folk. Then once you’ve
done the interviews, you’ve got reams of stuff, and from going through that you
have to find out who’s missing. It’s the most labour intensive play I’ve ever
worked on.”

The wave of verbatim plays that have developed over
the last decade or so has been more than just a fad, but has pushed writers,
directors and actors to engage with drama in a different way. Ultimately, however,
it is up to continue that engagement as they square up to dramatized conversations
that reflect ideas they may not have heard before.

“For theatre-makers, verbatim work is something that’s
long established,” says Hurley, “but for some audiences it might be quite a
strange thing. That’s why we’re doing it the way we are, with two performers
who you can look in the eye as they welcome you into the venue. Aly and Melody
set everything up so it’s a series of conversations by the people of
Perthshire, and break that up with a few songs along the way.

“What you get from that is a range of characters and
voices that talk about Brexit, the environment, climate change and all these
other things that came out of the conversations. It’s about what to do if we’re
going to have to live together in the world, and is put together as an hour of
informed story-telling.”

In this respect, both the construction and intention
of A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and the Fact it Rains appear simple. In truth,
the ambition of the show is vast.

“The aim of it is to start a conversation with this
specific audience about these big issues, and to recognise how they affect us
all,” says Hurley. “Here we are at Perth Theatre having this conversation about
current issues, and that’s what it’s for. Perth Theatre is you. It’s everybody,
not just in Perth, but around the whole area, and to be making work that is
relevant to that community, and for that community to have its voice heard
through something like this, that’s everything that Perth Theatre’s about.”

A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and the Fact it Rains, Birnam
Arts Centre, tonight; Strathearn Artspace, Crieff, tomorrow; Blair Atholl
Village Hall, May 16; Alyth Town Hall, May 17; Blairgowrie Town Hall, May 18; Loch
Leven Community Campus, May 19.

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About Me

Coffee-Table Notes is the online archive of Neil Cooper. Neil is an arts writer and critic based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Neil currently writes for The Herald, Product, Scottish Art News, Bella Caledonia & The List. He has contributed chapters to The Suspect Culture Book (Oberon), Dear Green Sounds: Glasgow's Music Through Time and Buildings (Waverley) & Scotland 2021 (Eklesia), & co-edited a special Arts and Human Rights edition of the Journal of Arts & Communities (Intellect). Neil has written for A-N, The Quietus, Map. Line, The Wire, Plan B, The Arts Journal, The Times, The Independent, Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman, Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday, Sunday Times (Scotland), Scottish Daily Mail, Edinburgh Evening News, Is This Music? & Time Out Edinburgh Guide. He has written essays for Suspect Culture theatre company, Alt. Gallery, Newcastle, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Berwick upon Tweed Film and Media Arts Festival & Ortonandon. Neil has appeared on radio and TV, has provided programme essays for John Good and Co, & has lectured in arts journalism at Napier University, Edinburgh.